44 Christmas Designs by Margaret Tarrant – printed both sides of the page

The Enchanting Christmas Coloring Book

By: Margaret Tarrant

Rating: 4 of 5

This is another lovely coloring book of designs based on the Christmas/winter artwork of Margaret Tarrant. For the most part, the designs have been rendered in line drawings very well. There are a number; however, which are too simplistic (especially those of snowmen) and could have had more detail added.

Unlike the fairies book (which was brown lines on white paper), this coloring book is done with green lines on white paper. Perhaps to show the holiday spirit. The line drawings are on the right side of the page and a full color image of the artwork is shown on the facing left side of the page.

While some of the designs are lacking in detail, most have a good amount of detail sufficient for coloring but still allowing room for shading, blending, and adding one’s own embellishments.

There is, once again, a short history of Ms. Tarrant’s art at the front of the book. Unlike the previous book, there are no title banners on each of the designs. Both ways work for me, so I have no problem with it. It might have been nice to include a page which gave pertinent information about each design.

This is what I found while coloring in the book and testing the paper with my coloring medium:

44 Line Drawing Christmas designs based on the artwork of Margaret Tarrant

Designs printed right side of page with full color image printed on the facing left side of page

Paper is white, medium weight, slightly rough and non-perforated

Glue Binding

Designs do not merge into the binding. There are framing lines at the outer edge of the designs. Oddly, some of the designs are sized small within these frames and have elements on all sides which are unfinished

Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page. If you use this medium, it will leak through and mar the design on the back of the page.

Water-based markers, India ink pens and gel pens show colorful shadows on the back of the page.

Colored pencils worked well with this paper. I tested both oil and wax based and could easily layer the same or different colors and blend using a pencil style blender stick.

Here are some sample photos from the book:

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